Wellington - New Zealand is joining the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, Italy, Israel and Australia in boycotting a UN conference on racism this week in Geneva, Foreign Minister Murray McCully announced Monday.

He said the scheduled follow-up to the "extremely contentious" 2001 World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, was "not likely to advance the cause of race relations at the international level."

Wellington - New Zealand is reluctant to send more troops to Afghanistan because it believes the situation there is becoming more unstable, Prime Minister John Key said Monday.

"The determining factor is whether we can see a plan, whether the plan in our opinion is likely to work and whether it fits in with our long-term exit strategy," he said at his weekly news conference.

Wellington, Apr. 18 : President Barack Obama will be invited to visit New Zealand by the Maori king.

King Tuheitia, who is expected to lead a Tainui delegation to New York next week, would invite Obama to visit New Zealand, the New Zealand Herald reports.

King Tuheitia will join former Prime Minister Helen Clark for her welcome next week as head of the United Nations Development Programme.

King Tuheitia would then ask former United States President Bill Clinton to pass the invitation to Obama to visit his base, Turangawaewae.

Sydney  - Food has become dearer for New Zealanders even as the annual inflation rate declined to 3 per cent in the quarter ending March, official figures released Friday said.

Falling petrol prices in the fourth quarter had helped bring New Zealand's inflation rate down from an 18-year high of 5.1 per cent to an annual rate of 3.4 per cent last year.

The consumers price index (CPI) increased 0.3 per cent in the first quarter of 2009. Higher prices for food and cigarettes were largely offset by lower prices for transport, Statistics New Zealand said.

Wellington  - New Zealand's Law Society Thursday urged lawyers and judges not to accept appointments as judges from Fiji's military regime.

All of Fiji's judges were sacked last week after three Australian judges sitting as the Court of Appeal ruled that the military government of Voreqe Bainimarama, who seized power in a coup in December 2006, was illegal.

In response to the ruling, the constitution was revoked and emergency powers were declared, including stringent censorship forbidding criticism of the government.

Wellington - New Zealand's Green Party called Wednesday for the United Nations to stop recruiting soldiers from Fiji, where the military government has imposed emergency rule, as peacekeeping troops in Iraq. "It is deeply ironic that Fiji is involved in rebuilding Iraq," foreign affairs spokesman Keith Locke said. "Fiji's military is more about destroying democracy than restoring it."

Locke said that 223 of the 282 Fijian soldiers and police officers serving with the UN were in Iraq.